By: Vivek Raghuvanshi
NEW DELHI — Israel Aerospace Industries on Friday emerged as the lowest bidder against Thales of France for the Indian Army's $500 million procurement program of 66 new-generation 3-D surveillance and tracking radars, which will replace aging Flycatcher radar systems.
However, signing of the contract with IAI will take time because the Indian Ministry of Defense will continue to pursue an even cheaper option for the program, a senior MoD official said.
As per tender norms, IAI will discharge 30 percent of the contract value as offsets to Indian companies, he added.
Executives from both IAI and Thales were unavailable for comments.
Following the failure of an acquisition during its first attempt, the MoD floated a second Buy Global request for proposal in December 2012 to Raytheon of the United States, Thales, IAI, SELEX Sistemi Integrati of Italy and Rosoboronexport of Russia. The RFPs also were sent to two Indian companies — state-owned Bharat Electronics Limited and private sector Larsen & Toubro.
Rheinmetall Defence of Germany was not given the tender because it was blacklisted in July 2010 for 10 years.
However, only Thales, IAI, and L&T (with Cassidian, which is now Airbus, and Elta Systems of Israel) submitted a bid.
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